Triggers and Tricks

Hey, I made up another system to introduce drama and heroism into your game!  It's frankensteined from stuff you've probably seen before.

Optional: every player picks a Trigger.  These can be phobias, addictions, or flaws.  Whatever they pick, it should be something that makes their lives harder.  Claustrophobia means that they'll have a hard time in tight spaces.  Alcoholism means that they'll seek out booze when they're in town, and may be drunk when they need to be sober.  Love means that they love someone else, and will react irrationally when their loved one is threatened (or at least take stupid risks) and be depressed if their loved one is hurt.  Wanted means that there's a fat bounty on your head.

Whenever your trigger causes you problems, you get a Trick.  You can't stockpile these, so if you've got one, use it.

Tricks (a.k.a. hero points a.k.a can be spent to help you do tricky stuff.  Spend them on important rolls, like shooting an arrow that Must Not Miss, or when Saving Against Spontaneous Combustion.  If you spend it right before you take an action/save/whatever, you get to roll 3x and use the best one.  If you spend it after the action/save/whatever, you only get one reroll.

Sometimes players appreciate mechanisms that pander to their roleplaying.  Sometimes people want a mechanical incentive to indulge in some character-building.  The nice this about this system is that it is sort of tit-for-tat: when the character's background causes problems, they get a hero point to balance it out.  So PCs who have triggers are balanced with the players who don't.  Sorta maybe.